Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I like Intego more than Mcafee on the Mac side. I’m running a triple boot MacPro and a MacBook Pro. Since I’m a staff member/student I purchased a couple licenses from a company called CreationEngine. It was half the price of the retail version of Internet Security Barrier X5 Personal Antispam Edition DP. The software comes with a license for BitDefender Internet Security 2008 for Windows and a link to a 32 bit download of the software.
I’m not crazy about running 32 bit software with a 64 bit OS. So I downloaded a trial version of the Bitdefender from Bitdefenders website, which has 64 bit drivers, and plugged in the serial #. Hey it worked! I didn’t see anything in the license agreement preventing this, so it seems kosher.
I contacted Bitdefender support and asked if I could run the same serial # for two Windows partitions on the same hardware/PC. Amazingly they said it was Ok. Woo hoo!

In case you don’t recall, Safari doesn’t have much in the line of antiphishing technology. That’s why I purchased the software.

You’re a legitimate owner of Windows and you’ve purchased the upgrade, but you can’t get Bootcamp to work. Why? Because Windows doesn’t have the correct drivers installed to eject the disk. If you can’t eject the disk, how the heck are you supposed to prove you’re a legitimate owner?!?! I suppose you can install Windows XP via bootcamp, face some fun driver cleanup issues, and do a lot of extra work to clean up the disk. Wow, did you ever get screwed!

Not!

Here’s the solution:

Your Windows DVD has all the various versions of the Windows installation files on the DVD. They judge your installation based on your product key. Leave the product key blank, uncheck the “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online”, click Next. Click No, when you are prompted to enter the product key before continuing. On the setup screen select the correct version of Windows that you purchased (minus the upgrade option of course). Remember we’re doing a full installation, not an upgrade……Well at the moment anyway.

Note: Do not run any updates!!!

After the installation and you’ve booted into Vista, pop in your upgrade DVD and choose Vista Upgrade Media. Enter your legitimate product key through the prompts and choose the Upgrade options. After the installation has finished, run your updates, activation, etc, etc.

Let me know how this goes. I’m just recalling this from memory and didn’t do a step by step like I usually do. Guess I’m getting lazy.

***Update***

Make sure you do the upgrade from within Windows. If you boot from the installation disk to do the upgrade, it will not work.

My MacPro with Logitech Z5500 speakers connected via a Monster optical cable was having a problem with sound. Specifically when playing music through iTunes the voices would sound extremely quiet, while the music was loud. After fiddling with the equalizer inside iTunes and finding no tweaks in 10.5, I gave up and purchased a fix.
A company called JoeSoft makes a product called Hear. I purchased this from the Apple Store ($10 cheaper than the manufactures website) and changed the threshold on the sound. Problem fixed. My only complaint is that this problem takes up a lot of resources.
If anyone knows a freeware fix for the problem, then please let me know.

Here’s how to enable the developer mode in the Safari web browser. This is good for web developers who want to test the website with various browser user agents. I’ve also heard it’s good for hacking at certain bookstores/coffee houses, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.Apple Safari
Go to the Apple Terminal and type in this:
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1Safari in Windows XP
With Microsoft WordPad open
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences\com.apple.Safari.plistNote: Application Data is a hidden directory by default, therefore unhide it or type something like
wordpad C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari\Preferences\com.apple.Safari.plist
<p>at run or the command prompt.
Before the last </dict> type in the following:

Well folks, I figured some poor soul out there could use this information. Sorry if this post looks a little wacky, I’m still trying to get the hang of WordPress.

I have a MacPro Quad 3.2Ghz, 10 Gb RAM, 2 Seagate 1 Terrabyte drives, Nvidia GeForce 8800GT video card, and an old Apple 320Gb drive.I installed MacOS 10.5 on my first Terrabyte drive. Windows XP64 on my second drive and Vista on my little 320 GB. I gave up on Linux distros on a dedicated drive due to PIA (pain in the blankity blank) and time constraints.After the installation, install the Network drivers then Windows XP64 Service Pack 2.

After downloaded and extracting (most likely the default location at C:\dell\drivers\R140747) Go to the Device manager and go to Network adapters and select the wireless driver, right click, select update driver, select Install from a list or specific location, browse to the x64 bit directory and install the driver, if asked it’s the Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card.

Bluetooth Driver: Haven’t figured that out yet 🙁

Windows Time Problem: This is complicated and a pain to get the file. Don’t do this if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing!!! You must grab a single file, then add some information to the registry.

I copied the AppleTimeSrv.exe from the Vista 64 partition where I installed Vista 64 and the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers from the original MacOS installation disk (Only readable in Windows…Spooky huh?). (The Retail version of the Leopard installation does NOT contain the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers!!!) The file is located at C:\Windows\system32\AppleTimeSrv.exe after you installed the Bootcamp 64 bit drivers

(I will not post this file due to Apple copyright legal blah blah blah)

Anyway, copy the file to the same location in XP64 and do the following registry hacks.

“Description”=”Maintains time and date when switching between Mac OS X and Windows”

ISight: Haven’t figured out a solution yet 🙁Eject CDROMs: Cannot find Apples version of “Keymagic”, but I did find a piece of software that works for me. It installed an icon in your Windows Icon Tray (Next to the date/time) . CD Tray Pal at http://www.e-systems.ro/cdtraypal.htmAntivirus Software: Typically I use CA (Computer Associates) Internet Security Suite, but it doesn’t support 64 bit OS’s. Tried AVG, killed my computer profile. Avast Antivirus is free for home users and works pretty good on 64 bit systems. See http://www.avast.com

I haven’t tried BitDefender 🙁

Slow Drive Performance Solution: Ok, only attempt this if you’re die hard and really really know what you’re doing. Even I’m not sure about this one, but it seems to speed up everything to righteous speeds

This registry hack will speed up the computer by forcing your drives from PIO 5 to PIO 6.

My users cannot go to the Adobe website to install Flash Player. How can I deploy Flash Player and related updates over my network?

Adobe Flash Player installers can be licensed for distribution over intranets and through fixed media at www.adobe.com/licensing/. Flash Player installers require administrator privileges on the machine.

I purchased a RAZR v3x from CompUSA a few weeks ago. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this phone, it is the extremely high-end version of the Motorola RAZR v3. This phone is primarily sold in European countries and is rarely found in the USA. This phone has some solid construction compared to the flimsy RAZR v3.

The phone I found at CompUSA is the silver/black unlocked version that has Planet 3 wireless logo. The Planet 3 logo is simply the number “3”, which most salesmen incorrectly assume stands for the model of the phone. Since the phone was sold as “unlocked,” it is compatible with the GSM technology used by Cingular and TeamMobile.

There is a caveat with this phone regarding the frequencies used in the US. For some reason there is an issue using both the 850Mhz and the 1900Mhz band at the same time. I hard set my phone to 1900Mhz because US wireless companies are switching to the higher frequencies. The 1900Mhz frequency has greater range, but cannot penetrate walls in thicker buildings (Such as ASU!). The inverse is true of the 850Mhz. Oh and this phone also supports UTMS (a.k.a. 3G/Third Generation/broadband), which I haven’t tried yet.

On to the fun stuff!!

First things first. I didn’t like the Planet 3 logo, so I downloaded the factory default firmware from the Planet MotoX website. I started playing with the internal video conferencing camera and the external camera, and then I noticed that it was only 2 mega pixels! What a rip! So I did what any techie would do, I enhanced the quality by removing the picture compression with a SEEM hack. This significantly increases the size of the pictures, but so what. My 1 GB card for the phone is on order from the local computer store.

After playing with it a while, I noticed that my phone couldn’t use the Cingular website. So I downloaded the root certificates, changed a few passwords entries, and I’m all set to browse on Cingulars network. I also added a Dictaphone program, MP3 player, and lots of video games for those long porcelain cruises.

Keep in mind, games made for the v3x are hard to find. However, I’ve noticed a lot of games can still be imported into the phone. The size of the screen and resolution on this phone is way way up there. Therefore, the games will have a smaller screen footprint.

I’ve noticed a certain university, which shall remain unnamed, likes to use a blanket phone number so you can’t see the number the person is calling from. There are some nice little options to bypass that annoying anonymity feature. However, be careful about playing with features you don’t know about. Otherwise you could get a very unhappy service provider or a rather large phone bill!

You’re probably thinking, why did you get service from Cingular. Well they utilize GSM technology, which is used widely over in Europe. As a traveler with an unlocked phone, you can purchase or rent SIM cards over there and have a local phone number. I picked Cingular over TeamMobile because Cingular is introducing the 3G technology in Arizona and I like to have options.

I disassembled a family members IPOD shuffle that no longer worked. Typically if the battery in a Shuffle dies, it can still be used as a USB Key and store data. However, this one had soda pop spilled on it and was then submerged in soapy water overnight (not my idea!). The result was a non-working IPod with rusted circuits.

Apple does not recommend disassembly of the unit and in Australia a unit exploded sending a boy to the hospital when he attempted disassembly. The most difficult and delicate part of the procedure is removing the base of the unit where the USB connector is located. Force should NEVER be used when trying to remove the USB connector. There is less than a centimeter of leeway. To make things more difficult in the procedure Apple uses a crap load of glue in assembly and an Exacto knife must be used cautiously. The battery, which has been known to explode, is actually a gel pack. Puncturing the battery would be a bad idea!!

I’ve got CUPS kerberized for the MacOS X client. Now the Macs in Active Directory can print to Windows print servers. Yah!! Apple came out with the 10.4.7 update, which still doesn’t fix the 10.3.9 server file/directory lock problem. Ho hum…..